Very good condition. Casion (VHS) Video By Product Details Director Martin Scorsese reunites with members of his GoodFellas gang (writer Nicholas Pileggi; actors Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Frank Vincent) for a three-hour epic about the rise and fall of mobster Sam "Ace" Rothstein (De Niro), a character based on real-life gangster Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. (It's modeled after on Wiseguy and GoodFellas and Pileggi's true crime book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas.) Through Rothstein, the picture tells the story of how the Mafia seized, and finally lost control of, Las Vegas gambling. The first hour plays like a fascinating documentary, intricately detailing the inner workings of Vegas casinos. Sharon Stone is the stand out among the actors; she nabbed an Oscar nomination for her role as the voracious Ginger, the glitzy call girl who becomes Rothstein's wife. The film is not as fast paced or gripping as Scorsese's earlier gangster pictures (Mean Streets and GoodFellas), but it's still absorbing. And, hey it's Scorsese! Martin Scorsese's movie about Las Vegas in the seventies and early eighties clocks in at close to three hours, and the epic running time is absurdly disproportionate to the stature of the main characters: a mob-connected cASINo manager (Robert De Niro); his wife (Sharon Stone), a former hustler; and a vicious gangster (Joe Pesci). These insectlike figures play out a petty drama of greed, jealousy, and depraved indifference to human life, while voice-over narrations try strenuously, and unsuccessfully, to persuade us that something weighty and tragic is going on. Individual sequences-mostly brief documentary-style passages-are lively and superbly edited, but none provides more than a momentary rush. The picture circles its empty center endlessly: around and around it goes, and where it stops nobody knows. Scorsese certainly hasn't forgotten how to make a movie; what he appears to have forgotten is why. Also with James Woods, Frank Vincent, and Don Rickles. Screenplay by Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi. Actors: Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods, Frank Vincent Directors: Martin Scorsese Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC Language: English, French Number of tapes: 2 Rating Studio: Universal Studios VHS Release Date: January 28, 1997 Run Time: 179 minutes ISBN-10: 0783218591